Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., reportedly has written to the National Institutes of Health chief to demand an investigation into whether an agency-funded study on the effects of puberty blockers is withholding its findings due to politics.
Rubio's letter, to NIH Director Monica Bertagnolli, drew attention to a study by Dr. Johanna Olson-Kennedy, the medical director of the Center for Transyouth Health and Development at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles, The Daily Signal reported.
Olson-Kennedy and her team recruited 95 children nationally and gave them puberty blockers, which staved off the permanent physical changes, such as periods, breast growth, voice-deepening and facial hair growth, that could exacerbate their gender distress, known as dysphoria, The New York Times reported last week.
Results of Olson-Kennedy's study, which began under the Obama administration in 2015, have yet to be released.
The Times quoted Olson-Kennedy saying findings have not been released because "I do not want our work to be weaponized. It has to be exactly on point, clear and concise. And that takes time."
In a 2020 report, Olson-Kennedy mentioned a few of the study’s findings. She said approximately a quarter of the children who received puberty blockers were experiencing depression or suicidal ideation.
"According to [Olson-Kennedy], she fears the findings will be used to show that puberty blockers do not improve the mental health of youth," Rubio wrote in his Monday letter to Bertagnolli.
The senator added that the study has received $6 million from the NIH.
He told the director that if the study’s findings are being suppressed, Olson-Kennedy is "masquerad[ing] political ideology under a veil of scientific legitimacy."
This is not the first time Rubio has turned his attention to the NIH.
In January, Rubio and Sen. Tammy Duckworth, D-Ill., wrote Bertagnolli requesting an explanation for the NIH revising its mission statement by eliminating its commitment to "lengthen life," raising concerns about its approach to a global increase in physician-assisted suicide and the treatment of Americans with disabilities.
In August 2023, Rubio wrote Dr. Lawrence Tabak, who was the NIH's acting director, asking how the agency planned to continue its funded biomedical research without a consistent supply of nonhuman primates after China banned exporting nonhuman primates to "prevent the spread of COVID-19."
Charlie McCarthy ✉
Charlie McCarthy, a writer/editor at Newsmax, has nearly 40 years of experience covering news, sports, and politics.
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